


Driving Instructions: Timestamp for "Traverse"

by thestoryinsideme



Series: Traverse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Drives, Destiel - Freeform, Drinking, Fluff, M/M, Nora's POV, Season 9, Spoilers for 9.06, Timestamp, dean/cas - Freeform, post Heaven Can't Wait
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestoryinsideme/pseuds/thestoryinsideme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Castiel is re-angeled, he works at the Gas-n-Sip convenience store where his boss, Nora, realizes that there is much more to Steven James Dean than meets the eye.  She offers to teach him how to drive as a ploy to find out more about him and his relationship to the handsome stranger that visited him at the store last week. This is a timestamp for the full length story "Traverse".  It takes place after 9.06 but before 9.09 and before the beginning of "Traverse".</p><p>Spoilers for 9.06</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driving Instructions: Timestamp for "Traverse"

She was intrigued by him. He was an impossible blend of age-old weariness and naivete, which she found terribly endearing. She watched him closely sometimes, noticed that when there were no customers and no work to be done, he would gaze out of the store window towards the sky with such sorrow in his eyes that the sight of it made her feel like an intruder stumbling upon something she could never understand. Nora had no doubt that Steven James Dean had secrets.

But he was the perfect employee, an ideal sales associate. He was never late for work, despite the fact that he did not have and could not drive a car. He was friendly yet reserved, and he never complained. He was a very fast learner, eager and reliable, and proved himself even further to her when he cared so well for her baby Tanya. She should mind her own business. She should let him have his privacy, allow him his secrets. She knew he was different, “special” she told him. And after the appearance of the handsome stranger at the Gas-n–Sip and then later at her home, she was certain that beneath the dull facade, Steve the sales associate was far from prosaic. After all, he was a grown man who did not know how to drive.

Still, she gave him his space. She did not question him, partly due to fear of the answers. She never again asked about the sleeping bag and the toothpaste or the handsome man whose name she did not know, and she fully intended to remain knowingly ignorant, until the day she found it. A flat black leather wallet in the storage room, lying on the floor, partially hidden beneath the metal storage rack. She picked it up and held it between her fingers, tried to talk herself out of looking inside, but she failed to stop herself and she opened it. It was not at all what she expected, in fact, of all the many scenarios she had imagined for Steve’s unknown past, FBI agent was never one of them. Yet there it was. A golden shield along with an FBI badge bearing a photograph of Steve and the name “Agent Stephen Stills”. She thought about confronting him with it, she thought about keeping it, she thought about calling the FBI and asking about it, but instead, she dropped it back on the floor where she found it and told Steve to be sure to sweep the storage room, then left for the evening.

When she saw Steve the next day, she made him an offer. She would teach him how to drive in exchange for a night of sitting baby Tanya. She expected he would reject the offer, as she no longer believed that he truly did not know how to drive, but he surprised her when he eagerly accepted and they scheduled the lesson for the next weekend.

Steve now sits awkwardly behind the wheel, as if he has never been in the driver’s seat of a car, awaiting his late night driving instruction in the empty parking lot of the closed convenience store.

“Are you ready, Steve?” she asks him.

He nods once. “I read the driver’s manual provided by the Department of Motor Vehicles. It was very informative.”

“Well that’s a good start.” She hands him the keys. “Are you sure you have never driven before? Not at all?”

“No, but I have been in a car as a passenger on many occasions. And when I was permitted to sit shotgun in the Impala, I learned much about driving that way.”

Nora creases her brow and looks at Steve. _Permitted_ to sit shotgun? Perhaps he is referring to an FBI thing. She had not planned to pry today - well not too much anyway. But suddenly she wants to know everything, especially about last week’s handsome visitor.

Steve misreads her confusion. “Shotgun refers to the position of front seat passenger, as you are now,” he explains.

“Yes it does,” she agrees. “The Impala - that’s your friend’s car? The one I saw parked outside of my house when he was waiting for you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

Steve’s lips move before sound comes out, as if forming the word is difficult, as if saying it is forbidden. “Dean,” he finally says.

“Dean,” she repeats. “Like your last name?”

“Yes,” he says.

When she saw Steve and the handsome man together, based on the limited interaction she had been able to observe, she’d assumed he was an ex- something, although she wasn’t quite sure what that something was. "This is not you," she heard the handsome man tell Steve and she surmised that the break-up was recent, one-sided, and possibly the reason Steve had relocated to Rexford.

“So, Steve, what did you learn about driving from Dean?” 

“I learned a few things. The most important of which is that driver picks the music and shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

Nora chuckles. “Of course, yes. Anything else?”

“Shotgun position must be earned.”

“Okay.”

“Do not get blood on the upholstery.”

“Did you say blood?”

“Well, the prohibition actually extends to all biological material, but blood, in particular, is difficult to remove from the leather.”

“Uhm.” Nora clamps her lips shut.

Steve looks around the car. “I’m sorry. I have made you uncomfortable.”

“No, no,” Nora shakes her head. “But what I meant was, did you learn anything about how to actually drive a car?”

“Ahh,” Steve says, nodding. “Yes I did. By observing. I was rarely the front seat passenger, and when I was it was usually for a few minutes, but I did watch and learn the basics of motor vehicle operation. “

“Was Dean your partner?” She knows this is a loaded question and that a yes or no response will not really give her a clear answer, but it seems like a good place to start. She pretends to go through the glove box when she asks it, tries to appear as casual as possible and does not look at Steve.

He does not answer. He slides the key into the ignition, turns it and starts the car. “The internal combustion engine is one of humankind’s greatest accomplishments,” he says.

Nora smiles to herself at the less-than-subtle bypass. She must be onto something. She wants to know more about Steve. About Dean. About Steve and Dean. And the FBI badge. For now, she will finish the driving lesson and then she will find another way to loosen Steve up and get him to talk.

 

“Are you sure you’ve never driven?” Nora hands Steve a beer from the six-pack she pulled from the cooler of the dimly lit, empty store. “You did really well for your first time.”

Steve smiles."Thank you."  He looks at the bottle of beer, purses his lips and shakes his head.  "No, not beer."  he says. "I can't drink beer."

"Oh."  Nora places the pack back into the refrigerator.  "How about we have some hard lemonade? It has alcohol in it, but it's not beer."

"All right."  She hands him a bottle and he accepts it. “You just twist, right?” He closes his hand over the bottle cap.

Is it possible he has never opened a bottle like this before? Nora doesn’t know what to think. He seems to know so much and so little at the same time. She takes it from him, twists off the cap, and hands it back to him. “Not much of a drinker?” she asks.

Steve shakes his head. “I haven’t had occasion lately. The last time I drank it was beer with –“ Steve stops midsentence, then puts the bottle to his mouth and swallows nearly half of its contents like he’s competing in a frat boy drinking game.

“I know you’re not driving,” Nora laughs, “but you might want to pace yourself. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

“Oh, believe me, I would have to consume an unusually vast quantity of alcohol to reach any level of intoxication,” Steve says, then finishes the bottle off.

“Okay then.” Nora opens another one and hands it to him. She plops down on the floor with her own drink and sits cross-legged facing the cooler. She waves at Steve to sit with her, and he complies by lowering himself to the floor across from her. “So what did you do, Steve? Before you came to Rexford.”

Steve looks up toward the ceiling before he answers. “I tried to do many things,” he says carefully. “I wasn’t very successful though.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she says. “That you weren’t successful.”

“Well, it’s true,” He sips his lemonade. “I get these ideas. I formulate these plans. They seem so right at the time. But I always manage somehow to fail in the execution.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.” 

He says nothing, looks around while he drinks.

“Are you close to Dean?”

Steve looks at her, hesitates. “No, he’s in Kansas.”

She reaches forward and slaps Steve’s leg. “Not literally. I mean as friends, or colleagues, or whatever.”

“We have…” he shakes his head. “We once had a bond. It’s different now.”

“Why is it different?”

Steve’s jaw twitches and he fidgets with the bottle in his hand. It looks like he is deciding whether he can talk to her. She tries to help him along.

“Look, I’m a good listener Steve, and anything you say won’t go any farther than us, I promise. Sometimes it helps us to talk about it with someone, to just get it off our chests, you know? We’re only human, right?”

Steve snorts at that, then nods. “So it would seem,” he says with half-lid eyes and a bit of a lopsided grin. Apparently "an unusually vast quantity of alcohol" means one-and-a-half hard lemonades.  He drops his head back against the glass of the refrigerator door. “Not by choice, though. I didn’t choose this.”

Nora cants her head and waits several moments. “Is Dean going to come back? To visit again?”

“No.” Steve pulls his knees up into his chest and leans forward against them. “I don’t expect I will ever see him again.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“What I want is of no import.”

“Don’t say that Steve. Of course what you want matters. What you feel matters. You matter.”

“Not to Dean.”

Nora wants to slide over to Steve and gather him up in her arms, comfort him, but judging by his closed off body language, she does not think it would be a welcome gesture, so she stays put. She certainly doesn’t want to spook him now. “I saw his face when he was here with you, Steve. I don’t believe that for a second.”

Steve frowns, shrugs.

“Your feelings for Dean, have they changed at all? Since when you had your uh, bond?”

“My feelings? I don’t understand them. They’re everywhere. It’s all so new. And perplexing. But everything has changed,” Steve says. “I’m not who I was, and I think that’s why Dean no longer needs me.” Steve takes another long sip from the bottle and empties it, then opens another one. “I'm not sure what I am supposed to do now.”

“It’s just like driving, really,” she says.

“How so?”

“When you’re driving,” she describes, “you put your foot on the gas and you move forward. And as long as you are putting in that effort, well, you keep going forward, toward your destination. If you let go, though, you stop. Stopping can be good every now and then. Maybe you have a little engine trouble, maybe you just need some rest. But if you don’t take care of the underlying issue, if you stop for too long, you risk stalling out, and when that happens, well sometimes you can’t ever get started again. Then the trip ends and you find you’re not anywhere near where you wanted to be.”

Steve looks askance at Nora, and she scoots across the aisle and settles next to him. Clearly she will have to be more direct. “Steve, when you love someone, it’s not something you can just turn off.”

“Love?” Steve asks, brows drawn together in confusion.

“Yeah, love. And when you love someone, well, you give them the benefit of the doubt. You forgive them things that to others may seem unforgiveable. You never give up on them, not if you can help it. If it makes you happy, you hold onto that love, if it is at all possible, for as long as possible. Because you love them, you make them your family.”

Steve sighs loudly, puts his bottle on the floor beside him and pushes it aside. “I want to tell you something,” he says.

“Yes?”

“But I can’t. I will tell you, though, that Steven James Dean is not my real name.”

Nora nods. She already knows this from the FBI badge, but she does not let on.

“I can’t tell you my real name for your own protection,” he continues. “Though I’d like to. But the less you know, the safer it is for you.”

His FBI work must be ongoing, she thinks. She will not question him or do anything to cause him to blow his cover or jeopardize his real career. “I understand.”

He pulls his back up, lowers his legs and sits straight. “And in two weeks I will have enough money for a suit and tie,” he tells her and she can actually hear the decision being made with his words. “Once I do, I will be returning to my old job.”

Nora suppresses an amused grin. If he wants to continue with the working-for-money charade, she will not call him out on it and simply accept it as his two-week notice. “Will you see Dean?”

“We sometimes worked together, yes. There is a good chance our paths will cross if I go back to my old job.”

Nora mentally pats herself on the back. She is good at this. She is rather clever. She has it all figured out. Then again, it was so obvious, really. Steve and Dean were partners with the FBI and when they became more than just work partners, things got complicated. They fought, Steve left, and he ended up here, in Rexford Idaho. He never really intended to stay, so he crashes at night in the storage room rather than find a place to live alone. The Rexford Gas-n-Sip is the perfect place to hide. At least, that is, until you are found. She has a good feeling that the story of Steve and Dean is far from over.

“If that's what you want, _Steve_.” She leans into him and emphasizes the name she knows is false. “I will help you any way I can.”

"Do you want to hear something funny?" Steve chuckles quietly. "Last week, I didn't realize you wanted me to babysit.  I thought you had asked me out on a date."  

Nora's eyes go wide.  "Really?  I'm so sorry Steve.  I guess I didn't quite..."  she stops, smiles at him.  "If I could I would you know.  But Gas-n-Sip corporate has some strict policies about dating employees.  I'm not allowed."

Steve looks at her, and she sees a spark of something in his eyes.  Delight?  Gratitude?  Hope? "You would?"

"Yes I would.  In a New York minute.  You're smart, you're handsome, you're kind. There is nothing run-of-the-mill about you. And that heart of yours? It's going to take you where you want to go, Steve. Mark my words."

Even in the low light of the refrigerator aisle, she can see a blush crawl up Steve's neck and across his face.  “Thank you Nora," he says.

Nora feels her own face flush. Steve is very attractive, but she never thought she was his type.  Perhaps she doesn't have it all figured out.  Steve is still a mystery, and somehow that seems right.

"There is something you can do for me, Nora, if you don't mind."

“What’s that?”

“I would appreciate one more driving instruction before I go,” Steve says, then drops his chin and grins. “I believe I am going to be doing a lot of driving.”

"Absolutely."  She hugs Steve.  It is quick and tight and unrequited.  She stands and wipes her hands off on her pants.  "I should go.  Do you mind getting rid of these bottles and locking up?"  she says.

"Of course not."  Steve rises as well and walks with her to the front door. 

"I'll see you in the morning," Nora says.

Steve unlocks the glass door and holds it open for her. "I'll be here."

Nora smiles, touches his cheek with her hand.  "I'm counting on it,"  she says.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://thestoryinsideme.tumblr.com//) here!


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